Of course, this list will not cover all situations — you need to ask the vendor explicitly if they have any other potential surcharges, such as:

Bandwidth charges

Storage space charges

Per-event-registration charges

Per-email-sent charges

Potential Additional Costs:
Keep in mind that in addition to the software, there are other costs involved in your project. These costs may not be critical from a software selection perspective, since they are likely to be similar among different vendors. These costs will also depend on who will be doing each particular task — your staff or volunteers, or an external service provider:

Initial setup of the system — all the system settings

Contact/member database transfer

Functionality customization and tweaks. (Be careful here! Of course you want the system to be tailored to your needs, but the costs can easily spiral out of control. Also, think about whether these customizations will be compatible with future versions of the software.)

Comparing AMS Provider Pricing:
If you are comparing costs for online AMS’s or Association/Membership Management Software, you can use the spreadsheet calculator we created as part of our Software Selection Guide. This will help you estimate and compare the total cost for a number of systems.